“But the children’s story — which mine and my sister’s is — is ours to weigh and apportion and judge as we see it.  Years later in college, I read that the great critic Ruskin wrote that composition is the arrangement of unequal things.  Which means it’s for the composer to determine equal to what, and what matters more and what can be set to the side of life’s hurtling passage forward.”

“However, blaming your parents for your life’s difficulties finally leads to nowhere.”

—  Separate quotes from “Canada,” by Richard Ford

 

(Click on Poem Title)

A Boy Races Slightly Ahead

A Little Girl’s Best Uncle

Arly

At Ten Years Of Age

Attic Fan

Bedtime Story

Chalk Against Cement

Christmas Morning On The Street Of Elms

Crying During Movies

Dad In The Dock

Daughters of The Beach

During The Hungarian Revolution

Eyes Of Owls

Fear of the Ball

Fierce Rider

Figure In The Doorway

For My Children

Golden

Ironing After The Korean War

Little Brown Paper Sack

Midway Motel

Missouri Memories

Off Kilter

Old Cowboys

Paper Goods

Playing The Death Card

Reading To Children

Red Brick Apartments

Revolutionist Holiday

Running In The Rain

Secrets

Sharpening Knives

Shoveling Snow, 1952

Sidewalk Trench

Spring Clover

Spring Time

Teddy’s Tongue

The Joy Of Striking Out

The Lost Daughter

The Search for A Lost Childhood

The Third Christmas Stocking

The World N.O.S

Toy Box

Vortex

Wings of Day